Automatic monitoring of the alignment and wear of vibration welding equipment

A vibration welding system comprising:

• a plurality of vibration welding equipment pieces including a welding horn and a welding anvil, the welding horn and the welding anvil being configured to form a weld on a work piece clamped between the welding horn and the welding anvil;
• a check station;
• a welding robot having an arm on which the welding horn and the welding anvil are disposed, wherein the welding robot is configured to selectively move the welding horn and the welding anvil to the check station to determine a status condition of the vibration welding equipment;
• at least one displacement sensor disposed on the vibration welding equipment and configured to measure a first distance between the welding horn and welding anvil at a first evaluation point and measure a second distance between the welding horn and welding anvil at a second evaluation point, when the welding horn, welding anvil, and the at least one displacement sensor are positioned at the check station, wherein the at least one displacement sensor measures the first distance at the first evaluation point by clamping the welding horn onto a gauge tool at the first evaluation point, such that the first distance is defined as the displacement of the welding horn measured by the at least one displacement sensor when the welding horn is moved from the idle position to the clamped position;
• a host machine in communication with the at least one displacement sensor, wherein the host machine includes a processor and tangible, non-transitory memory on which is recorded instructions for monitoring the vibration welding equipment to determine the status condition;
• wherein the host machine is configured to execute the recorded instructions from the memory, such that executing the recorded instructions causes the processor to:
• determine a first time period representing an amount of time elapsed since an evaluation of the status condition of the vibration welding equipment was completed and determine a number of welds performed since an evaluation of the status condition of the vibration welding equipment was completed;
• compare the first time period to a predetermined threshold time period, and compare the number of welds performed to a predetermined threshold number of welds;
• determine if a threshold condition is met, such that the threshold condition is met when at least one of the first time period exceeds the predetermined threshold time period and the number of welds exceeds the predetermined threshold number of welds;
• command the welding robot to move the welding horn and the welding anvil to the check station when the threshold condition is met;
• receive a first signal from the at least one displacement sensor representing the first distance between the welding horn and the welding anvil at the first evaluation;
• receive a second signal from the at least one displacement sensor representing the second distance between the welding horn and the welding anvil at the second evaluation point;
• calculate a difference between the first distance and the second distance, wherein the status condition corresponds to the calculated difference between the first distance measured by the at least one displacement sensor and the second distance measured by the at least one displacement sensor;
• evaluate the calculated difference between the first distance and the second distance by comparing the calculated difference between the first distance and the second distance to one of a first look-up table and a second look-up table, each of the respective look-up tables representing a plurality of threshold operating values for the difference between the first distance and second distance;
• and
• execute a control action with respect to the vibration welding equipment when the difference between the first distance and the second distance exceeds the corresponding threshold operating value contained in one of the first look-up table and the second look-up table.